Emily Maitlis Quotes

I'm a big fan of David Attenborough, who I think is the most adventurous of the nature program presenters.

David Attenborough's 'Life' series is phenomenal. He's a wonderful modern soothsayer.

There is such a big chunk of me that is David Attenborough. I think he is my biggest inspiration.

In the end, we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught.

The hour or so I spent with the ninety-year-old David Attenborough was one of the most beatific of my life. An oddly religious term, I know, for a man who doesn't have much truck with religion, but it was the serenity of that time that will stay with me most.

We are not talking about esthetics. We are talking about life: survival of Man. We must train young people to get another vision of Nature. We call it 'wilderness,' and we think it is progress to get further and further away from it. How crazy! Where would we have been if Nature had not built us up?

The philosophy that I have worked under most of my life is that the serious study of natural history is an activity which has far-reaching effects in every aspect of a person's life. It ultimately makes people protective of the environment in a very committed way. It is my opinion that the study of natural history should be the primary avenue for creating environmentalists.

My work at R.E.I. was incredibly fulfilling and rewarding, especially the stewardship elements of it, the ability to connect young people to public lands close to home.

David Attenborough... has that wonderful, breathy voice, and he's always so fascinated by what he's seeing. There's nothing about him that I can't find attractive.

'The Lorax' book was intended to be propaganda.

You can only get really unpopular decisions through if the electorate is convinced of the value of the environment. That's what natural history programmes should be for.

Education is very important, and the botanical garden is the place to do that. I grew up in a semi-rural area and learned from that being my playground.

The love of nature is a different thing from the love of science, though the two may go together.

I actually went to Wimbledon, and David Attenborough was sat in the row in front of me, and I thought that was quite amazing. That's insane, isn't it? He's, like, a proper person.

I think the only regret I have is not to have opened my eyes sooner to aspects of life like the relationship of man with nature and animals.

My childhood hero was David Attenborough. He opened my eyes to the wonder of the natural world. In fact, he's still my hero. I interviewed him at the Science Museum in 2015, and he is such a thoughtful, humble and inspiring person.

For all my life I have had a deep connection to the natural world.

Celebrate Earth Day every day.

The children and nature movement is fueled by this fundamental idea: the child in nature is an endangered species, and the health of children and the health of the Earth are inseparable.

We need to move beyond the idea of 'environment' and fall back in love with Mother Earth.

There would be very little point in my exhausting myself and other conservationists themselves in trying to protect animals and habitats if we weren't at the same time raising young people to be better stewards.

Passion is lifted from the earth itself by the muddy hands of the young; it travels along grass-stained sleeves to the heart. If we are going to save environmentalism and the environment, we must also save an endangered indicator species: the child in nature.

In every bio-region, one of the most urgent tasks is to rebuild the community of naturalists - so radically depleted in recent years, as young people have spent less time in nature, and higher education has placed less value on such disciplines as zoology……The times are right for the return of the amateur, twenty-first-century, citizen naturalist. To be a citizen naturalist is to take personal action, to both protect and participate in nature.

Let's not be too quick to blame the human race for everything. A great many species of animals became extinct before man ever appeared on earth.

That's the way to get young people. Once they see there are wonderful things to hunt for, to rediscover a species that was thought to be extinct or is extremely rare, to be the first to see a nest, to discover a new species unsuspected close to your home - these are things, I think, with a little education and excitement and the right kind of natural history would actually start a movement that makes going back to nature a profitable adventure.